Norwich — With a $38,951 grant awarded Thursday by Norwich Public Utilities, the Norwich Historical Society is ready to tackle the restoration of another 18th-century brick schoolhouse in the historic Norwichtown area.

The city-owned 1789 East District Schoolhouse at 365 Washington St. has been vacant since 1970, when local historic preservation advocates had plans to convert the building that had been used by the Norwich Free Academy Art School into a small museum. Those plans soon were abandoned and the building sat vacant.

The Dutch Colonial style brick building — smaller but similar to the recently renovated 1783 Dr. Daniel Lathrop School on the Norwichtown Green  — has a sagging wood floor, rotted window sashes, mold, cracked walls and uneven fieldstone outdoor steps leading to the side entrance.

“We've got the practice,” Norwich Historical Society President William Champagne said of the new plan. The historical society led a multi-group effort to obtain grants and restore the Lathrop schoolhouse into a visitors center with a Norwich history exhibit and small gift shop.

Champagne and project coordinator Regan Miner said the society will use the NPU grant to restore the windows, shore up the floor, clean out the mold and find a way to bring ventilation to the room to prevent future mold problems.

“We want to do an authentic, careful job,” Champagne said.

The total restoration cost won't be known until the group hires a certified historic preservation architect to examine the building and design the restoration, Champagne said. Future grants will be needed to complete the work.

The Historical Society hopes to open the building for educational programs to teach today's children what it was like to learn in 18th- and 19th-century classrooms, Miner said. The group also hopes to create exhibits and make it a tourist attraction for visitors of the Norwichtown Historic District.

Miner, who also coordinated the Lathrop schoolhouse restoration, said the goal would be to open the schoolhouse with the same hours as the historical Leffingwell House Museum a short distance away.

The NPU funding came through the state Neighborhood Assistance Act, a tax credit program that will allow NPU to divert a portion of the utility's gross revenue tax paid on natural gas and electricity sales to the nonprofit historical society. NPU paid $2.35 million in the gross revenue tax in 2016, NPU said in a news release announcing the grant.

“This certainly isn't the first project we've worked on with these guys, and it won't be the last,” NPU spokesman Chris Riley said of the schoolhouse project.

NPU also will work with the society to design a lighting upgrade, attic insulation and a heating and cooling system in the East District Schoolhouse. NPU provided a rebate of $525 for upgraded lighting at the Lathrop schoolhouse.

A year ago this month, Norwich resident Denison Gibbs alerted city officials of the deteriorating condition of the East District Schoolhouse after he had hoped to use the building in another group's effort to recognize Samuel Huntington's role as president of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War.

The sagging floor and mold prevented that group from using the building, and Gibbs brought his concerns to the City Council. Champagne said he later asked city officials to hold off on making repairs to allow the society to pursue state approval for the Neighborhood Assistance Act tax credit funding with NPU.

Gibbs said Thursday he was “delighted” to hear of the grant announcement.

“That's exciting news,” Gibbs said. “That's good because I was quite concerned. I was aware that (Public Works Director) Ryan Thompson had it on his radar. That was a forgotten location that nobody was paying attention to.”

c.bessette@theday.com